Casting Shadows Of Doubt

Families Of Iowa Dead Seek Answers

November 17, 1989|By ROBERT BECKER Staff Writer

WASHINGTON — After driving all night from his home in the coal mining country of Pennsylvania, Arthur Price Jr. stood Thursday in a Senate office building, gripping a large cup of coffee and trying to make sense of the longer journey his family has made since April 19 when their son Matthew died in the explosions aboard the USS Iowa.

"It just doesn't make sense," he said. "I just think the Navy has hung the whole thing on that boy Hartwig."

Price and his wife, Peggy, had come to the white-marbled halls of the Hart Senate Office Building on Thursday for the first day of Senate Armed Services Committee hearings on the cause of the explosions.

Seven months since Matthew was killed, along with 46 other sailors in the Iowa's turret No. 2, the Prices felt they were no nearer to the truth about what happened that day and were still bothered by questions that had gone unanswered.

They felt the Navy had blamed the wrong man in an effort to save their officers and their battleships.

"The people who caused that explosion are still walking and talking and living and breathing aboard the Iowa," she said. "There's a lot of questions they haven't answered, and I still want answers."

For the Prices and some of the other families who attended the Senate Armed Services hearing Thursday, there was little in the way of new answers or personal satisfaction.

The Navy defended its findings that the Iowa blasts were an act of sabotage by Clayton Hartwig, a 24-year-old gunners mate from Cleveland who was killed in them.

Repeating much of the presentation he gave Sept. 7, the day the Navy released its official findings, Rear Adm. Richard Milligan said his team of experts had considered every possible angle during. He said the conclusion was painful but unavoidable: Hartwig was responsible.

Milligan's forceful presentation, however, failed to dispell the families' doubts.

They wondered whether the hairline cracks found in the barrel of the center gun in turret No. 2 somehow played a role in the explosions. Or if old powder, friction, poor training or the unauthorized ballistics experiments going on that day could be faulted.

"It's still the Navy investigating the Navy," said Price. "Their evidence is circumstantial and it's unfair, especially the way they pointed the finger at Hartwig."

Hartwig's sister, Kathy Kubicina, and her husband, Frank, had driven in from Cleveland for the hearing.

In the months since the explosion, Kubicina has campaigned to clear her brother's name, appearing on network television news shows and appealing to members of Congress for help.

She viewed the Senate hearing as a chance to confront her dead brother's accusers.

"I just want him to see me and acknowledge me," Kubicina said of Milligan. "I want him to know we're here."

But there was no confrontation.

As Milligan briefed the senators on the Navy's explanation of the explosions, Kubicina quietly left the hearing room.

"I couldn't sit through this again," she said, noting that the Navy was still refusing to admit that its findings might be in error. "It's the same thing."

Robert Gedeon, whose son Bob was the left gun primerman in turret No. 2, also left the hearing room during Milligan's presentation.

"We shouldn't have to go through this," said Gedeon, who is also from Cleveland. "We haven't been able to sit down and think about what this means to our family. We haven't been able to cry."

Both Gedeon and Kubicina returned to the hearing room when the senators began questioning the Navy officers.